We have just come back from an excellent 11 night cruise on the Celebrity Reflection visiting Eastern Mediterranean ports. We were travelling with 3 friends who have been on 2 Celebrity cruises before so convinced us to try them and we are pleased that we did! For the last few years we have been on Princess cruises and it was great to try another cruise line.
Embarkation was a little stressful at Civitavecchia as when we were hoping to get on board at 12.30 p.m., Italian immigration were nowhere to be seen and unfortunately I had an asthma attack, due to the strong smell of bleach in the Cruise Terminal. Jamie, the Hotel Director and Renata, Events Coordinator saw my distress and made sure that I got some fresh air as the doors had been closed!
Once we got on board, we were handed a glass of sparkling wine and went straight to the buffet which I have to say was the best buffet selection I had ever seen. We had booked 3 Concierge Class cabins (no balcony cabins left when we booked in May) on various decks which were very comfortable and well located, especially the one assigned to our daughter and our friends' daughter which had an enormous balcony on deck 12. We all were not entirely convinced that the additional £200 each for this class of cabin was fully worth it as our friends said the cabins were the same size and set up as balcony cabins. The only extras were a bottle of sparking wine, canapies delivered to the room in the afternoon, if you wanted it, fruit bowl, tote bag and pillow menu (which we never used) and supposed priority for select dining. Priority for select dining did not work particularly well for our party of six as we had trouble getting a table on the first night but we met Jamie, the Hotel Director, at the Cruise Critic meeting on the 2nd morning who very kindly sorted out our problem so that we were able to have a regular table for 6 at 8.30 a.m. every evening if needed.